We know that it’s easy for children to learn languages, and that young children love music. There isn’t a parent alive who hasn’t clapped a rhythm to the delight of a little one or sung a favorite tune with them at bedtime. What parents and educators have always known has now been proven by science: there’s a connection between music and reading.
This is why half the smart baby toys out there have a musical component. It’s the same argument you used to justify putting them on your baby registry. I’m on your side here, trust me.
Our brains are hardwired to learn, and the patterns and rhythms of music go hand in hand. Dr. Nina Kraus from the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University found that children who were poor readers had reduced neural auditory responses to rhythmic sounds, like those associated with speech patterns. Those children with higher reading and literacy skills had similarly advanced skills where rhythm and sequence of sound was concerned.
The study’s authors state that, despite continued debate about the connection between music and language ability, “a growing body of work supports shared abilities for music and reading, with music aptitude accounting for a substantial amount of the variance in child reading ability.”
In other words, the more adept at music, the more likely your child is to have better reading skills.
Tell Us Something Mother Goose Didn’t Already Know
Educators and parents have known this. It took science a while to make it official. We’ve long known that mathematical achievement has been associated with music, and not just because Schoolhouse Rock helped you learn your times tables in record time back in the day.
This study takes it a step further, showing that there’s a connection between how well a child reads and his ability to tap out a backbeat, for example.
The Family That Rocks Together Reads Together
Sara Rashas of Tampa has two children who have always been exposed to music and encouraged to play – their dad Mike is a musician and plays bass guitar. His office is a virtual playground of rhythm instruments.
By Kindergarten, their oldest child was reading at a fifth grade level. She’s now in the gifted program at her elementary school. Her younger brother has an aptitude for music and as is roughly at grade level for reading – he’s been able to play drums since he was three.
The Big Question
Will playing Baby Einstein videos or attending Gymboree music classes with your toddler result in a child who is gifted with a great memory and fantastic reading skills? It’s likely that banging on pots and pans, playing hopscotch, and doing double dutch jump rope probably encourage the same pattern recognition skills that promote musical neural development.
At least, I hope so. So far, my musical experiments seem to be bearing fruit. All of my kids could read Harry Potter by the time they were five. Granted, their mom was an English teacher, so I was very interested in maximizing their potential as little book sponges.
It’s a call to action for marching bands everywhere: play away, my friends. You’re doing more than entertaining us during parades and halftime shows. You’re helping children learn to read.